A number of systems and programs are offered on the market for the design, the engineering and the manufacturing of objects. CAD is an acronym for Computer-Aided Design, e.g. it relates to software solutions for designing an object. CAE is an acronym for Computer-Aided Engineering, e.g. it relates to software solutions for simulating the physical behavior of a future product. CAM is an acronym for Computer-Aided Manufacturing, e.g. it relates to software solutions for defining manufacturing processes and operations. In such systems, the graphical user interface (GUI) plays an important role as regards the efficiency of the technique. These techniques may be embedded within Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems. PLM refers to a business strategy that helps companies to share product data, apply common processes, and leverage corporate knowledge for the development of products from conception to the end of their life, across the concept of extended enterprise.
The PLM solutions provided by Dassault Systemes (under the trademarks CATIA, ENOVIA and DELMIA) provide an Engineering Hub, which organizes product engineering knowledge, a Manufacturing Hub, which manages manufacturing engineering knowledge, and an Enterprise Hub which enables enterprise integrations and connections into both the Engineering and Manufacturing Hubs. All together the system delivers an open object model linking products, processes, resources to enable dynamic, knowledge-based product creation and decision support that drives optimized product definition, manufacturing preparation, production and service.
Traditionally, the design of an object to be manufactured undergoes several phases which notably include the “ideation” phase and the “concept” phase. During the ideation phase, a specialist designer, who is a specialist of the technical field, designs a two-dimensional (2D) drawing of the object, typically on a paper with a pen. During the concept phase, a CAD designer, who is familiar with the use of CAD systems, designs a three-dimensional (3D) parametric model corresponding to the 2D drawing. The 3D model contains specifications including parametric functions which allow the ulterior phases necessary to the manufacturing of the object.
At the time being, CAD systems are very complex to use. Indeed, most design operations require many interventions by the user. For example, for a single design operation on a shape, the user typically has to select the design operation through an icon or a menu provided by the GUI of the CAD system, select shapes which are already designed, and enter parameters of the operation e.g. in dialog boxes, etc. All these steps are time-consuming for the user. The user may also have difficulties accomplishing all these interventions. For example, the user may hardly find the correct icon, or the user may have no idea of the value of the parameters, or the user may find it hard to select a small shape when the selection has to be done by clicking exactly on the shape with a mouse. One consequence is that the GUIs of current CAD systems are often overloaded with icons. Furthermore, the workflow of the user is often broken as some interventions are always needed. The use of current system has thus low ergonomics and poor user-experience. This all leads to a lack of productivity.
Another consequence of this complexity is that the specialist designer and the CAD designer are most likely two different persons, since it is difficult for the specialist designer to use the CAD system. This implies a necessity for communication in order to smoothly link the “concept” phase to the “ideation”. Such communication requires time, and it presents other issues. For example, sometimes the 3D model does not correspond to the 2D drawing well enough and many corrections have to be performed.
Some software offer to select an object by mouse clicking on the object. This is the case of Microsoft PowerPoint™ which is completely unrelated to parametric CAD design. Then, by moving the mouse continuously without releasing the click, the object may be moved. If the click is released, several manipulators appear. The user may select a manipulator by clicking on it for acting on the object. Not only such software do not apply to parametric CAD design, but also, only one operation for all objects is directly available to the user in case several objects are displayed (i.e. the move operation). For performing more elaborate actions, the user has to select the object and then act on some manipulators. The selection is performed by a click which must be precise, and these interventions are too numerous.
Within this context, there is still a need for an improved solution for designing a CAD modeled object.